


third time's the charm

by mavnificent



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Inspired by Twitter, Meet-Cute, Other, Self-Indulgent, Sex Shop, There are no less than 3 1-star fantasy Yelp reviews for the shop that mention Molly by name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22228966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mavnificent/pseuds/mavnificent
Summary: The first time is chance.The second time is a coincidence.But the third time a handsome, redheaded stranger patronizes The Carnival of Curiosities to buy a butt plug, Molly is convinced he's stumbled upon an obscure kink he's never even heard of, and he aims to get to the bottom of it.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 31
Kudos: 226





	third time's the charm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theferalking](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theferalking/gifts).



> HUGE thanks to my partner, Speil (theferalking), for cheerleading this one all the way to the finish! They really helped jumpstart my brain, and I couldn't be more grateful.

According to Yasha, a mystery isn’t a mystery until it happens more than once, but Molly would argue -- adamantly -- that _this_ one _technically_ begins on a boring Conthsen afternoon when the bell above the door jingles just after the lunch rush. Molly, of course, doesn’t _know_ it’s a mystery, not yet, so he doesn’t look away from the mannequin he’s wrestling into a leather harness. He _does_ have enough art to shout, “Welcome to the Carnival of Curiosities!”, exactly as Gustav taught him to. When he finally turns to check the security mirror’s reflection, he only manages to catch the edge of a worn brown coat fluttering down the first aisle. 

Molly shrugs and returns to situating the harness over the display’s tail. 

“If you would just put on some weight,” he tells the mannequin as he unlaces her out of last week’s emerald green corset. He should talk to Gustav about putting velcro on the dummies so their clothes and accessories stay _on._ He cups two faux-pearl pasties on her perky plastic breasts, “We wouldn’t have this problem.”

Outside, the cobbled streets of Zadash are wet with rain, gutters perfect for paper boat racing. The post-lunch slump is in full swing, made worse by a storm that can’t decide between full-on assailment or pleasant drizzle, but was, nevertheless, enough to call Yasha away at the first belch of thunder. 

He’s _bored,_ and Mollymauk isn’t in the business of being _bored._

So he’s channeled his energy into _productive_ efforts: juggling lube and stacking enhancement potions into a vaguely penis-shaped tower, posing the mannequins in the rain-freckled display windows as suggestively as their ball-joints will allow. He bends the dummy and makes her frame her breasts for the halfling power-walking past. They flinch away, blush a ruddier red, and scurry on down the sidewalk. Thunder rumbles overhead. 

“You’d think he’s never seen tits before,” Molly hums, chin perched on a plastic shoulder. He fluffs the mannequins bangs and pats her hips with a click-clack of his rings, “All set. Dressed as you’ll ever be, Loo, dear.”

Last week’s corset is a looker, the bodice mimicking shimmering green dragon scales in something like satin, the stitching fine and delicate. Calianna outdid herself with this one, and he’s eyed it long enough this week that he knows he’s earned a sampling. 

_Maybe I should run that by Gustav as well,_ he thinks as he hops from behind the displays and sets in on loosening the laces and unhooking the busks, _having us model the product_. 

He pulls the wings about his waist, snorts a laugh at the thought of Ornna strutting the floor in a bobbing strap-on with one of her flaming fans held aloft. Molly sucks his stomach in and yanks the clasps shut. 

“Ehm, excuse me?”

Molly wheezes and twists around. “Ye~s?” 

It’s the floating brown coat. 

The brown coat is a worn pilot's jacket covered in cat hair but the man in it is a _looker_ in such a sad, scruffy way Molly wasn’t even aware he was into until half a second ago _._ Molly’s charmed at once.

...Which, to be fair, doesn’t take much.

“I was wondering,” the man continues - Zemnian by the sounds of it - staring at some point in the center of Molly’s face that _would_ be his eye if he were a cyclops. “If you could help me.”

There’s a crinkled leaf of yellow paper clutched in his hand that he only notices when the man’s hand flexes around it, so Molly, with his arms winged out behind him like he’s mid-chicken dance, smiles his most winsome smile. “Of course, it’s what I’m here for"—the man perks—"but first I need you to help _me._ ” 

Molly offers his back, tail swishing, "Can you pull the laces for me?”

There’s pause enough that Molly thinks he’s been abandoned until he glances over his shoulder to double check. Luckily, the man is still rooted to the spot, by horror or embarrassment.

“I-I am not so sure—”

Molly flaps the spade of his tail dismissively. “Oh, _I_ am. Don’t worry!”

After a bit of fumbling that involves the yellow note being unceremoniously crushed into his coat pocket, he reaches out and grips the fastenings. 

There’s a feather-light tug, then a tentative, “Good?”

Molly laughs. He can’t help himself. “Haven’t been treated that delicately since my middle school dance. Put your back into it! I can handle it, darling.”

A throat is cleared. The twist of Molly’s lips is smug, then gone in a flash when the laces are wrenched tight, rocking him onto his toes with a punched-out gasp. 

“Good?” Brown Coat tries again. 

Does he sound pleased? He sounds pleased. Molly can’t really tell. He might be projecting. He’s a bit dazed, after all.

“Fantastic!” he chirps breathily.

His pulse rabbits in his throat and armpits as the laces whisper into a bow behind him. Molly gathers himself and smooths his palms down the cinched boning, then twists around with a light air of dramaticism, hands twirling delicately into the air in his best imitation of the famed Ruby of the Sea. 

“How do I look?” he purrs, jutting a hip.

“Ah, well. Perhaps without the bowling shirt underneath,” the stranger offers bluntly. “It would not look so silly then.”

Molly’s arms drop. He pouts. The man blinks at him once and promptly fishes the paper from his pocket.

“Will you help me now?” he presses, thrusting it out.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Molly takes the paper with a quick glance over. “Follow me.”

He swans across the floor, past clear plastic display cases showcasing a limited edition double-ended silicone manticore dildo and into the stacks beyond. 

The Carnival of Curiosities is a well-kept shop, riotous with color and known for its wild assortment of merchandise not found anywhere else outside of Zadash, let alone the rest of the Empire (though, perhaps, best known for the sacrilegious sparkling silver Bahamut dick suspended from the ceiling, imitation to the statue in the Platinum House, _true-to-size_ as a write up in a local rag affirmed). Aside from the Invulnerable Vagrant on the west side, with their practical magical items for everyday use, no other store is chock-a-block full of enchanted wares per square foot the way the Carnival of Curiosities is. 

“...Gustav Fletching and Desmond Moondrop, the proprietors of our humble establishment, have connections with an enchanter in Tal’Dorei, y’see,” Molly spiels. 

“Do you often give your customers such history lessons?” 

“Am I boring you?” Molly ripostes with the air of someone who doesn’t care whether he is or not. 

It earns him an amused huff. “Nein. You are not.”

“You came _just_ in time, anyway!” Molly spins on the ball of his foot to walk backwards. “Humor me, sweetheart. _I_ was dying of boredom before you arrived.”

“...I do not believe that for a moment. You look like someone who has never known boredom in their life.”

Molly’s eyes crescent moon. “That’s a very fair assessment."

Their stroll slows as they arrive at the end of the aisle, and Molly gestures with both arms at the array of plugs laid out before them. The man brightens—or, well. Molly assumes he does. It’s always difficult to tell with these Zemnian fellows.

“Our wall of plugs,” he declares, much to the marginal widening of the customer’s eyes. “I can see where you got turned around. Y’think they’d be in the insertables section.”

There are long conical, utilitarian plugs, and cute, colorful glass ones with sparkly jewels studding their ends. Inflatables encourage customers to _give the pump a squeeze,_ and anal beads lay in long, sealed ropes, some topped with a pretty cock ring. Molly raps the packaging on a knobby plug encased in thick plastic, hanging secured to the shelving’s hooks.

“These are enchanted,” he says. “Say the magic word and it starts buzzing. And these”—Molly loops a length of faux-fur feline tail around his hand and gives it a tug—”are plain jane in terms of what they can do, but they’re popular. Loads of different sizes and tail-styles too.”

The man’s cheekbones are pink, but Molly’s not sure whether he’s overwhelmed or just a white human man prone to pinkness. Bit like lobsters, those ones. Curiosity must get the better of him though as he reaches out to stroke the fake, striped fur of the cat tail plug. His nails are chewed to the quick, nail beds stained with ink—he has pretty hands in that unpretty way, thick and scarred and knuckles defined.

“No, no. The one on the paper is, is the perfect choice, I think,” he says, almost to himself.

“You sure?” Molly jokes. “You look like a man that likes cats.”

That earns him a puzzled glance. Molly reaches out to pluck a long, dark cat hair from his coat, feels him tense beneath the contact. He twirls the hair between his fingers. 

“Oh. Ja, uhm. I have a cat. At home,” he mutters. He’s looking at Molly’s mouth. Teeth, maybe. Everyone always looks at his teeth. 

“I should hope you do,” Molly laughs, blowing the hair gone as though making a wish. 

The stranger’s Adam’s apple bobs, gaze flicking down, away. 

“The plain one will work,” he reiterates, and reaches for the beginner hot pink silicone plug. Molly bites back the wild urge to blurt _I have one in the same color_ because he is nothing if not a consummate professional. 

At the register and after he’s rung him up, Brown Coat takes his bag and hesitates, ducks his head, and murmurs, “Thank you for your help, Esma,” which catches Molly like a fist clipping his jaw. Gods, he hopes he’s not mistaking him for _another_ tiefling. That’d be so embarrassing for him, and deeply insulting for Molly. He fixes him with a confused smile. 

“Uh. Who?”

The man’s cheeks color. That’s _definitely_ embarrassment. He gestures uncertainly to Molly’s chest where the fabric is puckered over the edge of the corset. Molly glances down, garbles a sharp, cackling laugh that feels a little dangerous the way he’s done up.

“Hah! That’s not mine! Forgot mine at home,” he grins. “I’m Mollymauk! Molly if you’re nasty.”

“Ah, Mollymauk then,” the man murmurs, and his smile is carefully relieved, maybe even a little teasing. Might even be a trick of the light and a spark of hope on Molly’s end. He taps his paper bag against the counter and steps away. “Thank you, Mollymauk.”

“It was my _pleasure_ ,” he grins, leaning into the counter. He can’t seem to _stop_ grinning, even after the man has disappeared back into the light rain stubbornly buffeting the streets of Zadash. 

“Put your tail down, slut.” Yuli bursts from the back offices, tying a knot into the edge of her uniform shirt. She pauses to squint, “Are you _wearing Cali’s corset_?” 

Molly sighs, then slaps his palms down against the counter and sends free condoms flying, “Shite! Gods damnit!”

“Where’s the fire?” 

“I didn’t get his name!”

Yuli hip checks him from behind the register. She pulls out her step stool and uses it to bully him the rest of the way out. “Because you look like a fool,” she says, climbing onto it. Then: “Pick those rubbers up.”

Molly groans, long and loud and suitably dramatic, and crouches to retrieve them (pocketing a few for his troubles). 

***

“This is grunt work,” Molly calls from a ladder. He scrubs at the Bahamut dildo with a sponge bursting with water, but the virulently green graffiti _must_ be enchanted because it remains stubbornly unmoved. “Yuli should be doing this! I’m unionizing.”

“She can’t reach even with the ladder!” Ornna shouts back from the register, then, “Welcome to the Carnival of Curiosities!” when the shop bell jingles.

“Then get a taller ladder! Have Mona sit on her shoulders!” 

He could rub this thing raw and it’d still say _THE TRAVELER IS THE TITS_ in unmarred, glittering scrawl. How did that old woman even get _up_ there, Molly wonders. She must’ve been eighty years old….

It takes a trip to the back for some rubber gloves and a spray bottle of bleach to make _some_ progress, even if that progress is smearing the enchanted ink around a bit. The more he lays into it, the more the magic mocks him. Grandma had a sense of humor, apparently. Molly huffs, wiping his brow with a clean forearm. 

“I did not know you could clean dildos with bleach,” a familiar voice says somewhere below him.

“You can’t. Unfortunately, this dick has never met a hole it fits. So, y’know. Bleach.” 

“That is very good to know, Mister Mollymauk.” 

It’s Brown Coat at the bottom of his ladder, except Brown Coat is wearing _glasses_ today, of all things. It’s the kind of stylistic whiplash Molly can, and _wants_ to get behind. 

“Why, _hello!_ Mister-- Mister…?”

Brown Coat blinks up at him. There’s no note in his hand this time, but he _does_ have another anal plug held loosely against his thigh. Interesting. 

His mouth drops open the tiniest bit. “Ah, Caleb.”

“Mister Caleb,” Molly finishes with a swirl of his tail. 

Caleb is transfixed by the Bahamut replica with the sort of intensity that Molly would normally read as interest except his lips press into a thin, then thinner line as he reads the graffiti. If Molly didn’t know better he’d say it was consternation muddying his expression, but this is his second time meeting him so he really has no clue. 

“Enchanted ink,” Caleb surmises after his moment of study. 

“Well, that explains things, doesn’t it?” 

Caleb dithers a bit, then pulls the strap of his leather messenger bag over his head and sets the plug neatly atop it. He pushes the sleeves of his jacket up his forearms in a move that is practiced, determined, and _attractive_ despite being utterly useless on soft leather. 

Molly slides down to the floor with a blustery sigh, “We usually have someone in house to take care of things like this, but she’s not here and-- and-- what uh, what’re you doing?”

Caleb’s already up the ladder, straightening at the top with a precarious wobble. Molly doesn’t notice Ornna clouding his periphery.

“Excuse me!” she calls. Molly jumps. “Could you come down? Customers can't be up there!”

“It’s fine.” _It’s probably fine._ “He knows what he’s doing.” Molly has no idea whether he does or not, but he _looks_ like he does, and it’s really working for him. 

Above them, Caleb’s hands glow a pale blue-white over the enormous platinum dick, lips shaping around a quiet utterance Molly can make neither heads nor tails of. There’s a dull flash that sets the shaft glittering, then a second pulse of arcane energy, and a moment later the ink peels from silicone, flakes apart and dissolves in the air before him.

“Uh?” Molly says eloquently for the second time in less than five minutes.

Ornna looks impressed. That _never_ happens. 

“What was, what was that, that second spell?” he asks with all the finesse of a club-footed owlbear as Caleb scoots back down the ladder. Molly’s brain is oatmeal - why is competence so bloody _attractive_? “Dispelled the first bit, yeah?”

Caleb bends to take his bag up. He has no ass. It’s cute.

“Prestidigitation,” Caleb replies. “Useful for messes.” 

“Used to messes then, huh?” 

Caleb is, as it turns out, as perceptive as a brick wall, “Yes, unfortunately.”

“So!” Ornna cuts in with a clap of her hands. “Who am I making Molly’s cheque out to since he can’t do the job himself?” 

Molly doesn’t usually have enough shame to blush, but when Caleb ducks his head to shield his smile, his cheeks go fuchsia. 

“ _Anyway--_ ” Molly begins as Caleb says, “Actually--”

Molly sucks his words back into his mouth.

“...I forgot something. I will-- you will be at the cashbox, ja?” Blue meets red and the back of his neck prickles.

“Yup.” Nevermind the fact that Ornna has the only open register. “My box is ready for you.”

Caleb stares at him for one agonizingly long moment, then turns and disappears back into the aisles.

“‘My box is ready for you’,” Ornna deadpans. “You’re lucky Yuli isn’t working today.”

“Go to blazes.”

Her laugh curls like a warm wisp of smoke. “Give him your discount, will you?” she squeezes his arm with more heat than she means and, blessedly, leaves. 

When Caleb returns, it’s with the plug _and_ a bottle of lube, which isn't an unusual pairing. Not much surprises him these days, though he _is_ surprised that Caleb’s buying a second plug—same beginners brand even, same shape, same color and all—in just as many days. Maybe the last one broke. 

He considers all the ways that could happen with silicone and tries not to wince. 

“This is much cheaper than I thought it would be,” Caleb murmurs, staring down at his receipt. 

“You helped me rub Bahamut off,” Molly quips, and Caleb’s laugh is a quick, startled bark. Molly grins _,_ “Consider it a tithe.”

“I am not a worshipper of Bahamut,” Caleb says. He tucks his purchases into his messenger bag and out of sight. There are crinkles around his eyes, Molly notices. He’s a little delirious with noticing. 

“You’re an honorary acolyte at the Platinum House, dear.”

He looks like he wants to say something, but shakes his head with the faintest curve to his uneven lips. It leaves Molly wanting.

“Guten abend, Mister Mollymauk.”

“Gluten almonds, Mister Caleb,” Molly purrs, wiggling his fingers after him.

***

Yasha returns to Zadash a week before Lovers’ Day, pointing at the ceiling while claiming ‘ _false alarm_ ’ and Gustav doesn’t charge her a single silver piece for following up with _‘also, I lost my nametag_.’ 

“You’re Janet until your new one comes in,” he states, dropping a spare tag into her wide palm.

“I’m Janet,” she practices under her breath while affixing it to her breast.

“I don’t understand why Yash _or_ Bo, for that matter, needs ‘em.” They've gone over this a dozen times and Gustav still bites without fail. Molly chips away at his highlighter yellow nail polish, pushes his cuticles back. The coffee machine splutters to life behind Gustav’s desk, permeating the room with a bitter, burnt smell. “They’re the muscle.”

“Desmond likes the uniformity,” Gustav explains like it makes sense at all. He flicks up an order slip, pinches his lower lip thoughtfully between his fingers. He sounds tired when he says, “Maybe don’t bowl with the massage oil today?”

“Yuli started it. If we’re throwing some sad bastard out on their ass they don’t need to know Yasha’s name.” 

“They won’t,” Yasha intervenes before Gustav can lay into Molly. “Because I’m Janet.” 

They share a grin over Gustav’s head, who looks so done he could use a cigarette. 

“Please,” he starts, sweeping a hand towards the door. “Go do something with your lives. Be productive members of society.” 

Molly exits the office with a tittering flourish, Yasha with a gentle pat-pat to Gustav’s wan cheek.

In the hall, Yasha says: “I made it to Trostenwald before I decided to turn around.” She doesn’t bother looking over her shoulders the way Molly would when she slips a paper triangle of something no doubt illicit into his back pocket, “I brought you a souvenir.”

“You’re a doll,” he chirps and flips her a box cutter.

Nothing quite catches his fancy this shipment around, so the grunt work consists mostly of sitting cross legged on the dusty linoleum with Yasha, chattering and tossing packaging paper at one another. He’s glad she’s home, really. It’s nice to have another lightning rod for his attention that isn’t Caleb and his handsome wrists and magic hands and the mystery of his _two_ hot pink butt plugs. 

“...This guy, he’s in khakis and a polo, Yasha. Nondescript,” Molly says, stabbing into a new shipment. “And I tell Bo, keep an eye on that one, right? Too normal. Nearly makes it to the door before we stop him. Pockets are _stuffed_ with polymorph gummies. Bo gets in there, elbow deep, fishing jar after jar out of this guy’s pants!”

“I wish I’d been there. I would’ve turned him upside down. Given him a good shake.” She makes two big fists, mimes the act much to Molly’s delight.

“That would’ve been divine! I swear his cargo shorts had that haversack spell on them what with all the product we got out of there.” Yasha slices through a security tie for him. “We also had a very mysterious client.”

“Hmm, more mysterious than a man with enchanted pants?” Yasha begins, slow like treacle. She cracks open a crate. “Were they mysterious or just handsome?”

She has him pegged. Molly groans, “Oh, I don’t know. Both? You know I need you here to keep me on the straight and narrow.”

“We are worse together than apart.” She’s smiling, small and teasing. His tail flicks. “What were they in for?”

“A plug.” 

“Boring.”

“ _Two_ plugs. Separate days. Same exact make and color.”

“Mysterious.” She’s humoring him. He allows it. “One more time and it’s destiny. What do the cards tell you?” 

“That I desperately need to get laid,” Molly says, miserably enough that Yasha chuckles; clearly that isn’t a problem she has. “What do you think it means?” 

“Probably that. Well, you know, that they like….” She makes a vague gesture and immediately turns away from him when he pumps his fingers through the joining of his fore and thumb, eyebrows waggling.

Yasha’s quiet a spell after that while Molly turns over the implications of two plugs. Maybe one really _was_ defective. Caleb didn’t seem like the kind of person who was afraid of returning faulty items. Awkward, but no shrinking violet given the way he’d wordlessly climbed the ladder and did his whole abracadabra business. Then again, it’s not like their return policy covered much. 

Molly sighs loudly and drapes his arm over his face. When Yasha doesn’t take the bait, he sighs again, louder this time, then peeks out from beneath his forearm to see what’s got her so preoccupied. 

She’s staring at a box wrapped in clear plastic, dark brows scrunched. “ _Fiendish ovipositor_. Do you...do you boil eggs for this?”

Molly stretches, cracking his spine and sits up. “No. You make them.” 

Her eyes widen a smidge, “ _How_?”

“Jell-o! There’s a recipe in the box. You put ‘em in and then squeeze the, the pump thingie, and out come the eggs!” He flexes his fist - _squeeze squeeze._ “Part of your daily balanced breakfast, I’m told.”

Yasha doesn’t blush over much, but her cheeks go a little pink over that. 

***

“Wait, so what happened with the Bahamut”—Yuli glances at Toya where her head is bent down over paper placemat with a cheap wax crayon in hand. She leans forward, whispers—”D-i-c-k?”

Toya’s lower lips thrusts out. “I know how to _spell_ ,” she insists petulantly without bothering to look up. 

Molly cackles and Ornna squints at him while tapping the maze Toya’s busy coloring in instead of solving, “Finish your puzzle.” 

The Counter Spell Diner & Grille is beginning to fill up for the dinner rush, but they’ve nabbed one of the few round booths in the joint, the one with the unbroken vinyl cushions and the ketchup bottles they never forget to replace, so Molly feels like he’s living the high life. He steals a couple of fries from Yasha’s basket, then a couple more, until she’s moving her food to her opposite elbow and swatting his wily hands away.

“It got graffitied, is all,” Molly says simply. 

“ _How,_ though?” Yuli asks. A wad of burger sits heavy in her cheek. 

“Magic? I’m not sure. Do you know who the Traveler is?”

There’s an excited shriek from the booth behind them, then a grating, shushing squall. Molly glances over his shoulder, shrugs, and turns back around.

“No, but,” Ornna’s smiling at Toya’s placemat as she writes a letter into the crossword she’d given up on. “Molly made an idiot of himself.”

Yuli lights up. “Oh my gods, I _love_ this song.” 

“It’s not that funny.” Molly says.

“It’s a little funny,” Yasha says.

Molly glares at her, then spray shots that glare into the group. “This could’ve been a text.”

“And miss embarrassing you in public?” Ornna sucks her teeth.

“Stop bullying Molly.” Toya pushes her strawberry milkshake his way and Molly graciously accepts her offer. 

“It’s alright, darling. I’m hard to embarrass. I hope you all know that Toya’s winning streak as my favorite remains unbroken. The rest of you”—he jabs the air aggressively—”can choke.”

“Hmmm,” Yasha _hm_ s contemplatively. 

Ornna dismisses him with a wave and an, “ _Anyways_ \-- Toya, close your ears,” before recounting the graffiti and Mister Caleb, all while exaggerating Molly’s apparent _thirst_. It's practically libel. 

Yasha’s mea culpa arrives in the form of her basket reappearing near his elbow, so he takes a couple of fries as compensation to dunk into the strawberry milkshake while Toya attaches an arm to the body on their game of Hangman. He tunes them out.

Toya’s gaze darts up to Molly’s face only to twitch over his shoulder. She stifles a smile and looks down. He doesn’t think of the mysterious Mister Caleb or his mysterious magic or his mysterious need for two butt plugs or his mysterious lack of butt.

Toya looks up again. 

Then one more time. 

Molly narrows his eyes.

“That’s not how you spell Bahamut,” comes a stage whisper from over Molly’s shoulder. Toya’s hands slap over the letters sketched out on the lines of their game, cheeks puffing. He twists around to see a pair of wide violet eyes peeking through the space in their divider.

“We have a backseat gamer,” Molly announces, ducking down to block Toya’s view. Those violet eyes widen. 

“ _Another one!_ ” is gasped in excited Infernal, followed by a rustle and the click of kitten heeled boots on linoleum. A freckled blue tiefling pops out from around the booth, cheeks flushed a charming heather. “Hi, I’m Jester!”

“ _Another one!”_ Molly laughs delightedly. “S’pleasure, Jester. I’m Molly and what you were doing is considered fraud in nine municipalities across the Empire.”

“Well, I am not even _from_ the Empire, really. _I_ have diplomatic immunity,” the cute blue tiefling declares, hands propping on her hips.

“I think she was technically helping you cheat, Molly,” Yasha says. Ornna and Yuli barely give them a passing glance.

“Yes, technically,” Jester echoes with an eager nod, gaze skittering between the three of them. “Bahamut is with a ‘u’, not an ‘i’. I’m not _huge_ into spelling or anything, but I heard you guys talking about _dicks_ and _Bahamut_ and it was _really_ funny so I thought you should know before you get, like, hanged.” 

“That’s the point of the game,” Toya pouts. 

Jester’s tail swishes playfully. “What’s the silliest word you know? I can teach you some _really_ good ones! They’ll never guess!”

Toya brightens. Molly lounges back against Yasha’s shoulder and offers a pleased, lazy smile. There’s a thoughtful exchange of nonsense between them, Toya chewing on her lip before blurting out _splendiferous,_ which he’s not sure is a real word, but Jester treats it like it is, eventually countering with _honorificabilitudinitatibus._ That one isn't silly so much as it is an undertaking. Could be absolute bullshit, but it isn't like he can look it up himself. 

Jester leans over the table to spell it out in crayon, letters tall, looping, and familiar in a way he can't quite place. The word makes less visual sense on paper. There’s a squeak of vinyl behind them from the same booth Jester had vacated. A Toya-sized figure swimming in a black hoodie materializes beside the second tiefling, their giant, lamplight eyes glowing above a standard-issue hospital mask. 

“You could always go with…” she begins in a voice that needs a lozenge, then launches into a word so long Molly scrambles to unlock his phone and time it. There’s no chance to second guess her presence. 

Yasha pales. Even Ornna and Yuli hush up to catch the tail-end of it. A solid two minutes later, well after she's started swaying like even _she's_ ready for it to be over, she stops. Molly sits up and claps. 

“Is that the end of it? That was the end of it, right?”

“Ho-lee _shit,_ Nott!” Jester exclaims, joining in the applause. 

Yasha releases a breath, “Was that Common?”

“Chemistry,” Nott, apparently, warbles. She fishes a miniature from the well of her hoodie pocket and pushes her mask up to swallow the contents down in one go. It smells like bloody shoe polish from where he’s sitting. Molly’s _impressed._ “Anyway. We’ve gotta go, Jessie. Beau’s about to have a conniption.”

Toya tries to spell the word out on her mat.

"She has _Fjord,_ Nott! He can _toootally_ calm her down till we get there! It’ll be fine!"

Nott shifts back and forth. "Fjord's late. And he’s _Fjord._ She's with Caleb-- not that we should be worried! He’s _very_ capable, but…."

The name zings through Molly's chest, ears perking. 

Jester's tail goes rigid. "Oh! We've got to go! It was nice meeting you!"

"It was splendiferous!" Toya chimes. Jester has no choice but to hastily curtsy to that. Her tiny, floppy-eared friend remains focused on their group, pupils cat-eye wide, like she can sense the thoughts grinding through Molly's brain. He squints at her, exaggeratedly. She squints back, then whips around with a half-skip to keep up with her friend’s much longer, much more buoyant strides out the door. 

“She was cute,” Yasha says after a moment.

“Mm, very.”

He’s listening, but only just. There must be a million Calebs in Zadash of every age and species. Hells, half of those have probably passed through the shop, each one of them into ass play. He tilts forward to take a pull of his mostly melted milkshake, hands trapped between his knees.

“Molly!” Toya lays down a final, waxy line on Ornna’s stolen placemat and shoves it across the table at him. “Round two!”

There are no less than twenty-three lines beneath her clumsily drawn gallows. Molly resigns himself to his fate.

***

Molly doesn’t believe in destiny - when he traipses through life with no expectations, everything turns into a pleasant surprise _._ He expects nothing out of fate and fate has never put money down on him, his proclivities towards card readings be damned. But when Caleb ducks in on Lovers' Day, he remembers what Yasha said about _destiny,_ tongue firmly in cheek, and tries not to make something out of nothing. He’s no magician. 

Caleb gives him the tiniest, most uncertain wave. Molly meets it with a toothy smile that promptly turns cross-eyed over a wad of cheap lingerie thrust under his nose. Unfortunately, their early Lovers’ Day sale doesn’t give a single, solitary shite about fate: Molly’s got a line seven people deep that shows no signs of taking its boot off his neck, and Caleb disappears down aisle four. Molly plucks the security tag off feather-edged satin. 

“This is great, they’ll love this,” Molly chirps in that way that means the opposite. He rings it up, folds it neatly and tucks it into a bag. “Come again!”

“Plan on it,” the customer says with a waggle of his eyebrows. There’s a rictus to Molly’s smile. 

Molly doesn’t keep an eye on the security mirrors. He doesn’t peek down the winding aisles as he wields his barcode gun, or catch Yasha’s eye where she stands at her platformed station with her arms crossed. In fact, he’s _so_ focused that he doesn’t even notice Yuli go sailing across the floor with more product, shouting for people to get out of her way, or how she very nearly clips poor Caleb on her way by. There’s nothing odd about Caleb popping into his line, even though Mona’s is closer and shorter. Nothing odd, let alone distractingly handsome, about his clean-shaven face or the bright blue scarf laden with large, brass buttons.

When Caleb is front and center, his hands are empty. Molly’s tail flicks up.

“I’m sorry about Yuli,” he says immediately, because of course he’d bloody noticed, who is he fooling? 

Caleb huffs. “No harm done.”

“Literally,” he quips, and Caleb’s eyes meet his briefly before they’re gone again.

“I was wondering“—Molly’s tail climbs a little higher—”There are no more pink plugs?”

Molly blinks. “Sorry?”

“The pink silicone plugs are gone. Are there any more in stock?” 

“ _All_ the plugs are gone?” Molly isn’t sure he means the plugs in the shops, or the ones Caleb has purchased. 

“Well, no. There are purple ones.” 

“There you go! All is not lost!”

Caleb stares at one of the points of his horns, palms flat against the counter now. “Hm. He might not like that,” he murmurs to himself. 

_He_ hits like a sack of bricks. 

Caleb steps away from his register and the line fills in behind him. “Alright, thank you, Mister Mollymauk.”

Molly manages a grinning _mhm!_ as if something inside of him hasn’t just deflated. He scans a bottle of lube and a double-ended dildo, bags them with a flourish for a dark-haired gnomish woman.

Ah, he knows what that thing was. _Hope._

It’s alright, though. There are bound to be loads of cute redheads across Zadash, and he can just be his...friendly, neighborhood sex shop clerk, no shame in that. By the time Caleb returns to his place at the front of the line, Molly has worked through enough customers to have convinced himself he’s already over it. He smiles at the packaging and plucks it from his grasp. Strangely, it’s Caleb who breaks the silence. 

“I’m glad that, ah. Bahamut hasn’t been defaced again,” he says and Molly snorts.

“He went in for his annual. Clean bill of health!” 

“That is. Very good.” Caleb seems to visibly cast out for words, as if unsure how exactly one _continues_ small talk. He settles for holding his receipt like he’s reading _every_ line of it despite his unmoving eyes. “Another discount?”

Molly cocks a brow. “It’s Lovers’ Day, Mister Caleb. There’s a sale on. Isn’t that why you,” he gestures to his own face to indicate the absentee beard. 

Caleb mirrors his action, hand scrubbing across his cheeks, then giving them an idle scratch. Phantom beard, probably, and even _that’s_ attractive, the bastard.

“Nein, that. It was for a presentation today,” he explains and Molly’s hope pokes its head from wherever it’d gone to sulk. 

“It’s nice,” Molly says, tongue suddenly dumb in his mouth. A half elf jostles behind Caleb, bumping his shoulder, startling them out of embarrassing themselves any further. 

“I should--“

“Well, have--“

Molly grins and passes Caleb’s bag over. “Glad you and your partner aren’t giving up on your kinks.”

“Was?”

Molly has shame enough to feel his tail tip flush. 

“Third, uh. Third time’s the charm, right?” He points at his baggy. Caleb stares down at it, a soft furrow cleaving slowly between his brows. He meets Molly’s gaze so sharply Molly feels it pull in his gut. 

“It is for my cat,” Caleb says. Then he turns on his heel and walks out. 

The half elf dumps an armful of items across the counter, hugging them into a small hoard. She catches a riding crop before it rolls off the top. “Finally! Thought he’d never leave!” 

_His cat?_

Molly rings her up in a daze. There’s a story there and it’s no doubt delightfully smutty. Maybe it involves collars, ears, a tail with a plug--

He doesn’t have much time for daydreaming, not when the bell above the door clangs violently enough for several patrons to turn. 

“Oh no, he’s back.” The half elf woman shoves her things harder across the counter like it’ll make Molly go faster. Caleb marches to the register like a man on a mission, cheeks flushed and jaw set, and Molly really hopes _he’s_ the mission. He hopes so hard he misses the barcode on a sheer black negligee and scans his wrist instead. The machine screams at him.

“It is _for_ my cat, but not—not _for_ my cat,” Caleb says immediately. Molly stares at him for a long moment. “I have never had sex with my cat.”

A hysterical little giggle bubbles up. “I made no presumption, Mister Caleb.”

“Just in case,” Caleb continues. “There is, is a reason.”

“And that is?”

“It-- I am not good with this.” 

“You’re doing fine so far. Really. Please continue.”

“I don't want you to think I have sex with my cat.”

Molly tucks his lips into his mouth to keep from laughing outright. “Thought it was a pet play thing if I’m honest. I’m intrigued that you’ve gone through three, though. Is your cat eating them?”

“Is he _buying_ anything?” a bronze-scaled dragonborn interrupts over the half elf’s shoulder. 

She flutters a hand and shushes him. “Something’s _happening!_ ” 

Molly’s cheeks hurt from grinning. Caleb’s blush hasn’t faded a shade.

“No, he’s not. _He’s_ not eating them.”

Molly playfully narrows his gaze. “Are _you?_ ”

“What? I-- _what?_ ”

Molly’s line is disseminating, swinging left into fuse with Mona’s. Only the half elf woman remains, putting her card away _very_ slowly. She’s missed her wallet twice already.

Caleb rubs his forearms. He says nothing for a long time, but Molly’s patient, waits him out while words click against the back of his teeth.

Finally, Caleb states, “I have to go,” and does just that. 

Molly stares after him for the second time that day, nursing a severe case of whiplash and a welling disappointment. 

“I think you should go after him.” The half elf seems to have finally found the button on her wallet.

Molly’s tail whips in irritation as he scrubs a hand down his face. “He just ran out. What makes you think he wants anything to do with me?” 

She lifts a brow. “ _Who_ on earth comes back to reassure someone they don’t have sex with their cat?” 

Molly drums his claws against the countertop, gaze locked on the door where the bell still trembles. She makes a good point, and yet….

“The way I see it,” she’s saying, “You have to one up those stuffy types. They need a little thrill.”

“What do you know about that?” he snaps. She’s only trying to help, he realizes, but he didn’t _ask,_ and he hates unsolicited advice. He’d like to sulk in peace, thank you, maybe take his break and drink from Desmond’s stash. 

Luckily, she’s completely unperturbed, sniffs daintily and very pointedly picks up her purchases. Her _multiple_ purchases. “If I didn’t know what I was talking about, darling, would I have spent _so_ much money here?”

Fucking hells, she makes a solid point. Molly takes his fifteen. 

Early evening in Zadash on Lovers’ Day is pleasant. It’s a little nippy, the sky a sleepy blue. Festive banners hang from light poles advertising a parade Molly had missed, but heard as he restocked earlier that afternoon, while tinsel and crepe paper snags, dirty, in the gutter. Rush hour traffic congests the streets more than usual, the exhaust in the air masked by a vendor candying and roasting pecans in a stall on the corner.

Molly bounces on the balls of his feet and scans the street. Caleb couldn’t have gotten too far. 

He finds him pacing at the entrance of the parkette across the road, halfway through a cigarette and muttering to himself. He looks like a crazy person, fingertips reddened by the cold and hair mussed by the wind. Molly is oddly endeared, has to thank the Moonweaver for the busybody of a half elf guardian she must’ve sent his way. 

“Mister Caleb.”

Caleb starts, “Scheisse!” 

He hiccups and thumps his chest, blinking owlishly at Molly shrinking the distance between them.

“You left so quickly I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.” 

Again, Caleb doesn’t answer immediately, taps a bit of ash away and sucks from his cigarette like someone desperate for fortification. 

“I, ah. I needed a smoke,” he admits, somewhere in the direction of the concrete. 

“I see that,” Molly says. 

Caleb rubs his arm, drops his hand. Lifts it against to take another pull before thinking better of it. He stubs his cigarette out on the back of a park bench and tucks what’s left of it into a battered carton that disappears into the leather briefcase slung across his shoulders.

“I’m sorry. It is. A long story,” he hedges. 

“I’m on break,” Molly counters. 

Caleb jams his hands into his coat pockets. “It is very stupid.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Molly says, tail swishing. “I _love_ stupid stories.”

Molly can’t tell if he’s smiling or not, but those little creases appear at the corners of Caleb’s eyes. He reckons he’s lucky Caleb’s attention is fixed on the ground--he’s liable to do something stupid over a pair of pretty blue eyes. 

“Well,” Caleb sighs. And he’s not sure _what_ he’s said, but he must’ve said _something_ right, because Caleb sinks onto the bench and leaves enough room for Molly to join him. “You see, my cat. He is a bit of an asshole....”

The asshole cat in question has a name, and that name is Herr Frumpkin, Molly learns. He’s a bengal fey cat by the looks of him in the pictures he scrolls through on Caleb’s phone ( _here he is, stretched out on his back in a beam of sunlight, this one is of him from below, presumably while crouched on Caleb’s chest_ ), and he has the kind of smug air about him that speaks of _many_ (much deserved) treats. Unfortunately, Herr Frumpkin (the bastard) once took great pleasure in stealing Caleb’s earbuds, holding them hostage under the couch where he would chew them to pieces in secrecy much to the chagrin of Caleb’s wallet.

“Altogether they are not cheap, so I did some research. Plugs are body safe, and I wanted to find something similar for uh-- _don’t laugh_ \-- for Frumpkin to play with.” 

Molly’s stomach _aches._ He heel-palms the corner of a watering eye, smearing his eyeliner wing, breathless from cackling over the mental image of Frumpkin with a hot pink plug held in his mouth like the corpse of some poor rodent. “I can’t imagine it’s working. This is what, your third one?”

“That is not the end of the story, Mister Mollymauk,” Caleb says, and there’s a lightness to his expression that isn’t a _smile,_ per se, not yet, but it makes Molly’s stomach do something entirely ridiculous nonetheless.

“Then by all _means,_ ” he chuckles, gesturing for him to continue. 

“Frumpkin likes them.”

Molly nods sagely. “A man of taste.” 

Caleb spreads his hands. “I suppose he thinks they are, ah, like mice? I am not sure. But, my. Well, My neighbor got a dog recently.”

“Hmm. The plot thickens.”

“Ja. A _blink_ dog.”

“Oh _no._ ”

“ _Ja!_ And my neighbor, she is also my friend, but she is not very good with discipline. So now, well. Frumpkin doesn’t eat my earphones, but Nugget-- that is the dog’s name-- he pops in”—here, a snap of his fingers—”and has decided to eat the anal plugs.”

A human man gives them a double take and a wide berth as he passes. Molly swipes to another picture, and this must be Nugget—a large puppy, given his clumsy paws and ridiculously tall ears, below an unamused Frumpkin sat above him, haughty and unbothered, on a counter. But what catches his eye isn’t the dog, nor is it the handsome bengal cat, but the freckled blue tiefling girl blurred with movement in the background.

“Hang on-- I _know_ her!” 

Caleb blinks and leans over, shoulder brushing Molly’s. He smells like cigarette smoke and below that, woodsmoke.

He winces. “Mmh, yes. I’m sorry about her.”

Molly shoots him a quizzical look. “What, _why?_ Ran into her at Counter Spell and she covered me and my friends’ meals. Bloody delightful, that one. Jester, right?” 

Caleb gapes. “...She...the, ah, Bahamut dick?”

“Yeah, that’s how we met--wait.” The gears in his brain grind to a halt and just as quickly start up again, this time counter clockwise, then at double speed. Molly clutches his forehead, right between his horns. “Wait. _What?_ No.”

Caleb’s nodding, has been for a minute now. “Ja.”

“She was, was _old,_ though.”

A globule of light blinks to life to hover over Caleb’s palm before he closes his fist to smother its glow. “Magic, Mister Mollymauk.”

“Oh, fuck me running!”

The pigeons strutting about the walkway titter and flutter their wings at his shout. Some even fly away. Molly slumps against the bench, head falling back, teeth bared at the sky in a grin. Gods, he’s an idiot, not connecting those dots. Beside him, Caleb is quiet. At least until he snorts.

Molly cracks an eye, head listing sideways. “What’re you laughing at?” 

“I’m not. I’m not laughing,” Caleb says softly at his lap. “...Shouldn’t you be at work, Molly?”

“I’m on my fifteen.”

“It has been...mmh, twenty-three minutes.” 

Molly feigns a cough into his fist. “I’m sick. I had to leave early.”

There are those creases again. The color in those round human ears. Molly’s tail curls and knocks against Caleb’s boot.

“...Do you flirt with all your customers?” Caleb asks eventually.

“It’s good for business,” he jokes. Molly braces his tricep against the back of the bench and rests his cheek on his knuckles. Shows just a little bit of fang, “It never usually works.”

“Ah. You think this is working?”

Molly’s grin is too cavalier to be anything but painfully, heartbreakingly hopeful. “Isn’t it though?”

Caleb’s smile is so small and shy and sudden it could be a private joke. He aims it at his knees, “No.”

Caleb’s got a handsome aquiline nose and enough scruff on his cheeks to give someone beard burn if he put his mind to it, but not nearly enough to hide the ruddy blush that begins to suffuse them. The angles of his mouth are soft and his lips are slightly crooked and chapped and Molly would like to kiss them. When he looks up, the blue of his brass-buttoned scarf must be doing something close to magic to his eyes, what with the way they make Molly’s stomach swoop like it hasn’t in an age and a half. 

Molly makes up his mind and punches his number into the phone still in his hand. He'd be a fool not to.

“Well...if it starts to work, you should text me. Or call.” He bites his lip quickly and presses Caleb’s phone back into his hand. “But you’re right! I should, uh, I should get back to work.”

Getting off the bench while Caleb watches him must be the most difficult thing he’s ever done in his entire life. Which granted, hasn’t been very long, but considering it’s his to do what he wants with, he decides it ranks. Caleb glances down at his phone and wipes the screen with a thumb.

“Have a good evening, Molly,” he says.

And Molly takes a step back, then another, just to prove that he can. “Happy Lovers’ Day, Caleb,” he grins, and heads back across the street.

Mona is _livid_ when he returns to the Carnival of Curiosities, but she doesn’t wail on his hips the way Yuli does when she’s upset. Instead, she deploys her brand of psychological warfare by following him from her register as he shoos Yasha away from his. She is all too happy to oblige him. The shop is quieter now with the rush over. 

“Do you know how long the line was while you were gone?” Mona whines, though she has every right to. Molly doesn’t care. “Even _with_ Yasha’s help. Look at her! No one wanted to get into her line.”

“Not true,” Yasha returns. “One customer even asked me to step on him.”

Molly snorts. “And what did you say?”

Yasha tilts her head. “I told him to get the fuck out of my face. It didn’t have the effect I was hoping for."

“Gods, Molly, where even _were_ you?”

Molly props his elbows on the counter and stares dreamily down aisle four. “Solving a mystery,” he purrs.

Mona’s face crumples with bewilderment, but Yasha’s eyebrows climb higher and higher still. She looks appropriately surprised. “That was him? The butt plug guy?”

Molly’s back pocket vibrates. He straightens and pulls his phone free.

**[ UNKNOWN ] It’s Caleb.**

**[ UNKNOWN ] I was not being truthful, Mollymauk.**

Molly's tail curls.

**[ UNKNOWN ] It was working. Your flirting, I mean.**

He grins.

“Yeah,” Molly says, cool as can be while his fingers fly across the screen. “That was butt plug guy.” 

Caleb isn’t the only telling untruths. Molly’s face hurts from grinning so he bites his lip to stop. 

**[ ME ] suspected it was but what a relief all the same!!**

**[ ME ] can i flirt some more? preferably in person?**

**[ CALEB ] I’d like that. :)**

“It _is_ butt plug guy,” Molly amends. His eyes are bright as he looks up from his screen. He could sing. He could fly. He could even do magic if he tried. He’s...what’s that ridiculous word of Toya’s? He’s _splendiferous._ "His name is Caleb and we're going on a date, so feel free to quote me on this, ladies: it's bloody _destiny_."

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, they make out like teens on their first date. This fic was based on [this tweet](https://twitter.com/ZiziFothSi/status/859330239461294080?s=19). 
> 
> The first time I wrote fic for this pairing it was about a strap-on. The second, a sex shop. Welcome to my brand. Couple of things:
> 
> The "another one!" in Infernal is from Chaya's [M9 Beverage series.](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1290278)
> 
> I couldn't find a way to shoehorn Caduceus into the fic without it being clumsily done, but him and his family run a psychedelic shop peddling mushrooms and CBD.
> 
> I'm on twitter (stellarautopsy) and tumblr (zoddamnit), but all I do is scream about Molly and Star Wars, so feel free to ignore this entirely.


End file.
